Analog TV

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The year was 1953, the miracle of television and found its way to the Midwestern United States and to the city of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The first television station KELO put up a tower that could send a fairly strong signal that reached out 30 or 40 miles and produced a fairly decent picture.

Our family lived about 80 miles away. Consequently, we had some loss in signal strength and the type of picture that we could receive. There were many days when all we could get was snow on the screen. We could get an audio signal to tell us if the Lone Ranger and Tonto were in trouble, or if they had the bad guys on the run.

Evidently the people making those first television sets knew they better put some fairly sturdy control knobs on the front of those television sets. It was a constant thing to be turning the brightness knob for clarity or the contrast knob for a picture. Did you want more clarity or contrast on the screen? That was always the decision to make. The picture always faded out anyhow!

The Untouchables with Robert Stack was one of the most popular shows in the evening. For some reason TV signals seemed to be a little bit better after sundown. Everyone was glued to their television set to watch the Untouchables.They chased the Al Capone gang around Chicago and half of Illinois, that was a very exciting show at the time.

The clarity of the TV picture was downright discouraging, about 95% of the time. The people running the television station continued to promise everyone, be patient we are going to put up more booster towers all over the state. Everyone will have a good television picture on their sets. This did start to happen within a couple years and the television picture contrast and clarity became much better.

It is now April 6, 2016. More than 60 years have gone by since we got our first television sets. We learned to love our televisions for awhile, that changed. It was entertainment to a degree for many years. Somehow the people in high places at the FCC decided television broadcasting should not be done with an analog signal any longer. They changed the law to require television to be broadcast with an all-new digital signal. The reason being, it makes for a very sharp, specially clear picture on your television set.

They did not tell us the signal is so weak a flock of birds flying over might mess up your television picture. If a thunderstorm forms in your area, the conditions can cause the new digital signal to completely fail. NOW HEAR THIS, this is the part that makes absolutely no sense. The Nation’s early warning system for storms and national security is all supposed to be broadcast over the television networks to notify the people in case of an emergency! If you have a tornado in your neighborhood you are better off to look out your window. Your television can’t warn you when it is off the air due to weak signal strength. The nations safety was placed in the hands of fair weather planners! If the FCC would have stayed with that old analog broadcasting signal, you could use that same television set that you bought in 1953 to at least receive your emergency warning messages today.

The link below will take you to some mind-boggling reading that explains the change from analog to digital television broadcasting. Good luck trying to understand what it means.